From the Ottens

Greetings to all of you from Cubulco. After our visit to Canada this summer the girls have settled into their school routine again. Jolene is in Grade 5, Melissa in Grade 3, and Sarah is in Grade 1. The boys, well, they get into mischief. One day we found them throwing candles around the living room, wax everywhere. The electricity goes out in the evenings quite often, so now we get to use beat-up candles.

People continue to come to the hospital to have their babies. The hospital is becoming known for deliveries and emergencies. Many births turn out well, for which we thank God. Avila, a 29 year-old woman from Chuipapop (2-hour walk from Cubulco), came for her first prenatal checkup in March, seven months pregnant. In April she came for her second consultation. The doctor thought she was quite big, so they checked and found out she had twins. She came at the end of May and twins (a boy and a girl) were born, each weighing about five and a-half pounds. They were healthy and went home the next day.

Whenever there are mothers who need C-sections the hospital has an ambulance so that they can be sent to the government hospital, a two-hour drive from Cubulco. There are several drivers on call and a nurse accompanies the patient to attend to any complications during the drive. There have been babies born en route. It seems that the bumpy road is quite effective in helping deliveries and has prevented many Cesareans.

In September, Celia (a 60 year old woman), came to the hospital with a mass on her right shoulder. She had gone several times to the national hospital and was sent away. The doctors here examined her case and decided to remove the mass, which went very well. She came again in October and everything looked very good. She kept expressing her gratitude because she was concerned that she would have to live with this mass for the rest of her life. It happens more often that the Indians are pushed aside in the government hospitals. If the case had been too complicated for the doctors here they would have invited her to come to the hospital the next time an American surgeon comes for two weeks to do surgery.

A dentist and two surgeons with their wives are coming for two weeks at a time in October and November. One is an opthalmologist who specializes in cataracts and other eye surgeries; the other is a general surgeon. Our Guatemalan doctors have a list of patients ready to be examined by the surgeon when he arrives and within a day or two he will have most of his two weeks filled with surgery, with a few openings for late-comers.